The Fear of Breathing: Stories from the Syrian Revolution

As thousands have been tortured, jailed, maimed or killed by the Syrian regime, The Fear of Breathing is not only a new play based entirely on verbatim reports from inside Syria itself, but is also a hard‐hitting evocation of a life or death fight for freedom, experienced from the inside. To uncover these personal stories from the uprising, award‐winning journalists Paul Wood and Ruth Sherlock, together with theatre director Zoe Lafferty, travelled into Syria covertly, circumventing the ban on journalists and restrictions on movement for all non‐Syrians. They spoke to protesters as well as citizens who love President Bashar al‐Assad and are terrified of a future without him.

Featuring verbatim scenes, interviews, stories and film footage, The Fear of Breathing is a powerful and profoundly disturbing portrait of a revolution struggling to survive.

Additional Information

ISBN13

9781849434195

Binding

PaperBack

Page Extent

88

Reviews

‘Genuinely revealing… the first-hand testimony is riveting… it leaves one with a heightened awareness of how a basic desire for human freedoms escalated into a sectarian civil war.’ – Guardian

‘This project primarily trusts in the words gathered to grip and inform us… it can hardly be bettered… Essential viewing’ – Telegraph

‘“Fearless” is a word bandied about too much in the field of new playwriting, often meaning little more than the mild bucking of some trend. But genuine courage went into the compiling of The Fear of Breathing… enlightening and horrifying’ – Independent